In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested.

During our weekly Holy Smokes meeting we watched this video and discussed how aware we are of the water around us. Everyone was able to identify many specific areas where we become numb to the tedious happenings in our lives and don’t live out our lives as intentionally and positively as we could be. While a couple of people felt like they had the skills required for living an intentionally thoughtful life mastered most of us identified things as simple as our behavior in traffic to our attitude at work and the grocery store as having room for improvement.